A/N: We're nearing the end of this series, and the next chapter I'll post will be the last. This got longer than expected - longer than Flat Dreams itself did, really. Hope the ending won't disappoint and, until we get to it, I hope you like this chapter as well.

In the Nightmare Realm, time has meant nothing since the day Bill Cipher decided to stop it.

"Can't have my favorite gang of misfits growing old and dying while I'm still around, right?" he had said, and that had been it. Ever since then, time has stood still: it doesn't flow as it should, and it hasn't for a trillion years. Ot at least, Bill said it was a trillion years, and they figured he would know. If anyone could keep track of time even as it stood still for them all, it was Bill.

But now he's gone and they don't even know how long it's been.

"Do you guys think he's really gone?"

Kryptos' question is sudden, but not entirely unexpected. Well, it's unexpected from him, because he's usually not the kind to speak up first, but they all knew someone would ask aloud, eventually. It's what they've all been wondering since… bwuh. However long it has been since they've been sealed back into the Nightmare Realm, which can't have been that long ago, or so Pyronica assumes. Without Bill, it's hard to tell.

"Of course not," she blurts out, and ignores the glances the others give her, the way they shift and turn away. Kryptos is the only one to keep staring at her, clearly hoping for her to convince him of what she just said. "He's made of pure energy, isn't he? And remember what he told Time Baby when he tried to destroy him?"

"You don't get to destroy energy," Keyhole mutters, and turns back to her. He seems just a little less grim than before. "Good point. Whatever they did, they can't have destroyed him."

"But why hasn't he come back, then?"

"Why wasn't he sucked back in here with us?"

"Where is he?"

They have lots of questions and absolutely no answers. That would have never happened with Bill around, because he had answers to everything. If Bill were there, then… then they wouldn't even need to ask that question to begin with, would they? If he were there, like he was supposed to be-

Somewhere in the distance, something screeches.

Not too long ago - how long? - it wouldn't have made them even turn, but now it's enough to make them all flinch, and Teeth's… teeth to start chattering. Noises like that, screams and howls and cries, are commonplace in that domain: twisted creatures in a world of chaos. Except that now even chaos is different, because Bill is no longer there to control it. Come to think of it, their world wasn't truly chaos before, because chaos means nobody is in control. But Bill was. There was some order in that chaos, and it was his will.

Not anymore.

"... Didn't sound too close," 8-Ball grunts, and they all breathe a little more easily, a few wary eyes still turned to the window opening in the wall of Bill's palace, showing the rest of the realm down below. Pyronica feels Xanthar inching closer to her, and puts a hand on his side.

"We can take care of 'em if needed," Paci-Fire finally mutters. "I slaughtered millions-"

"Yeah, yeah. We know the drill."

For a trillion and more years, it hasn't mattered what monstrous creatures of all shapes and sizes found their way in or were created in their world: none of them, none at all, would dare attack them. It would mean attacking Bill, and a such thing would have been suicide. They feared him, each and every one of them, and that fear had kept them all safe, never having to worry about anything. Things would destroy and absorb and devour each other all the time, but none of it would touch them. None of it threatened them.

But now he's gone. And we're still here.

There is a place in Bill's fortress where he could always be found, whether or not he was really there - the chambers where he'd leave his body behind, encased in stone, when he entered the Mindscape. He could stay away for long stretches of time, and many seemed to believe that destroying it would mean destroying Bill as well. It wasn't true, but it hadn't kept some from trying in the early days of his reign.

"You know you don't even need to guard me, right? I can recreate my physical form any moment when I come back here."

"Hey, doesn't sit well with me and the guys to just let someone waltz in and destroy it. Gotta look after each other. Like in prison, remember?

"Have you forgotten the part where I got near infinite power and junk?"

"We miss you while you're off, you doofus."

"Of course you do. I don't know what I'd do without me, either."

Except that now there is no stone statue left behind. If there is any, it isn't there. Or at least it wasn't last time Pyronica checked - but she still goes to take a look, from time to time. Just in case, she thinks, and pushes the door open to see… wait, what…?

"Bill?"

But of course it's not him, and that much becomes clear when the 'Bill' yelps and scrambles back towards the window - causing the ever-changing lights of the decaying world outside to show his features.

Kryptos.

"... Hey. Thought it was someone else," Pyronica says, a bit awkwardly, and Kryptos gives a small shrug, followed by an embarrassed laugh.

"Afraid not. Just me," he says, then glances at the spot where, once, Bill's physical form stood while he was away. "Heh. Can you believe that before… all of this, I'd have been expected to get really offended?"

"Oh?"

"I'm a Square. Bill was - is - a Triangle. Below me. It was reaaaally bad form, mistaking a shape for a lesser one."

"Huh. Sounds like I wouldn't have made many friends here. I was always terrible at geometry. But I guess the part where I helped kill most of 'em ruined my chances anyway."

The laugh they share is brief, but does sound more sincere than the one Kryptos forced out before. Without thinking, because she never thinks much over anything, Pyronica sits on the couch she and Bill would usually settle on for a drink. Except that there is no drink no, no Martini made to appear out of thin air.

No Bill.

Sheesh, just admit it's a bartender you missed!

"Do you ever miss your old world?" Kryptos asks, gaze wandering everywhere across the room except on her, and Pyronica finds herself thinking about it for a few moments before replying.

"I'd been moving across dimensions since I was able to walk and my mama was out of prison. I don't even remember it all that well. This has been my dimension for way longer, anyway," she adds, gesturing towards the window and the chaos beyond. "It's been a trillion years. My old world is gone by now and hey, I was banished anyway. Most of us were. We stuck together in prison, there was no going back, so it only made sense to stick together out of it. One of us getting godly powers was a nice extra, though," she adds, and pauses for a moment to stare at Kryptos. He's saying nothing, hovering before the window and looking out of it. It occurs to her that, out of all of them, he and Amorphous Shape are only ones who had never seen another dimension but this one until their short-lived visit to… Gravity Falls, wasn't it?

"... What about you? Do you ever miss the way things were before?"

"No, no," Kryptos says quickly, then avoids her glance when she raises her eyebrow. "I mean… not the way it was. It was terrible. I missed a few things and people, and first. But it's been so long now. I guess it's just kinda weird to think I'm the last Flatlander left."

It takes her a couple of moments to realize why the statement doesn't sit right with her - but once she does, it makes her scowl. "You talk like he's gone. He's not gone," she snaps, standing up from the couch and causing Kryptos to wince and lift his arms.

"Wait, I- I didn't mean it like that! It's just… it didn't feel like he was a Flatlander anymore. He was something else, wasn't it? Like… I don't know. Not really sure what he was, but he wasn't one of our kind anymo-"

"Quit talking about him like he's a thing of the past!" Pyronica growls, and lights up her hands without thinking, causing him to trail off and yelp.

"Sorry! I'm sorry!" Kryptos blurts out, arms still raised. "I didn't mean to- it doesn't matter anyway, right? I mean, time is kinda standing still, so…"

Wait.

Pyronica ignores whatever Kryptos is saying and turns to look at the clock on the wall - one whose face and arms are made out of an actual face and actual arms, a clock Bill mounted personally on the wall just so that he could look at it and claim it was time for a drink. It was meant to be a joke, because that clock's arms hadn't moved one inch since its creation...

… And are still not moving. Time is standing still, because Bill stopped its flow. If he were gone - truly gone, in all dimensions and realities, then… shouldn't that have been undone even there, in his dimension of origin? Shouldn't time be flowing again?

But it isn't. Time is still dead here.

"Ha. Hah. Hahahahahahahahahaha!"

"Uuuh… 'Ronica? You okay? Should I- whoa!"

Pyronica just laughs again, squeezing him tight and dragging him into a twirl. She used to do that to Bill, too, and his protests were a whole lot louder than Kryptos' feeble ones. "It's just - hah! - we've been worrying for nothing! Bill's gonna have a good laugh when he finds out!"

"... Huh?"

Can't have my favorite gang of misfits growing old and dying while I'm still around, right?

Pyronica gives him a toothy grin, and even fights back the urge to chew him up just a little to show how happy she is. "Don't you get it? The guys were right. He can't be gone, because time is still dead. We're still around, and so is he. So sit down, buddy," she adds, dropping him down on the couch. "He's out there somewhere and he'll find his way back. All we gotta do is hold the fort and wait."

Across reality, someplace that is in all dimensions and yet in none of them, something stirs. It is not time, not yet.

But it will be.

Sleep.

Wait.